Category: places

Walking in the atmosphere was relaxing, technical, and less like a bar, more like a metropolitan co-working facility. I was greeted by the bar tender, who was also quite knowledgeable regarding 3d printing design, despite his background being the “hospitality” industry.

The bartender gave me a nice tour of the facility, including pointing out area’s where I could easily find plugs in order to charge my laptop. I ordered a latte and sat down at a long table and listened to the environment, I counted no less than 3 other groups of entrepreneurs discussing their business plan and strategy for conquering their respective market.

I messaged on Google messenger some of my colleagues to let them know where I was working today, since from my understanding, 3d printing bars haven’t quite become the norm. A colleague who collects an eclectic type of vintage British vehicle sent me some specs for a cup holder he needed for one of his cars.

I summonsed the bar tender who helped me quickly put together a design, and after some revisions with my friend, we sent off to the printer. We estimated print time to be just under 3 hours (2 hours 50 minutes) and around $40 dollars. As far as I am concerned that is fair, you couldn’t find this particular part for this particular car anywhere on the market, if it did exist you would spend hundred acquiring it.

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I ordered lunch, which by no means was gourmet, but was a deal. It included a sandwich, cookie, bag of chips and drink. I can’t complain, the food wasn’t bad.

I got plenty of work done while waiting for my print to finish. I did after a while find myself uncomfortable sitting at the long table and moved to one of the comfortable couches to work. I was not the only one using the facility to get some work done, there was at least one other entrepreneur who had made Proto their office at least for the day.

As the day went on, other groups had shown up to work as well as a business who had decided to come to Proto for a team building event. They received lessons on designs, and drinks, and advice for improvement on their designs that they eventually printed on the 3d printers.

All in all, this was a great experience, I definitely would like to bring my older sons here. They give lessons on 3d design, soldering, robotics, and sell all of the required parts to achieve these feats. Including multiple Arduino kits.

I found myself able to easily immerse myself in my tasks at hand (which on this particular day seemed to be extra challenging) comfortably.

I will definitely find myself working from Proto more often. I am even going to try and convince my wife we should do a date here.